“I’m going to fix you something,” Helgid insisted. “And you should drink plenty of fluid, too.”
Raj knew better than to argue with Helgid, who could be as persuasive as she was kind. He reached for his flask and sipped. Samel looked as if he was winding down from some of his anxiety. Another memory came back to Raj. In the frenzy of the storm, they’d both forgotten about Bailey’s intimidating threat.
Watching Helgid preparing them supper, Raj decided against saying anything. The last thing she needed was another worry.
Chapter 17: Neena
Neena ducked underneath the cave’s protective opening.
Fear froze her feet.
She looked down at the sand, as if a creature might burst through the ground beneath her, crunching her bones, or worse, swallowing her alive. Working through her fear, she lifted a boot, took a furtive step, and then another, getting farther away from the cave. Kai followed quietly.
The heat of the desert day baked through the dusty sand clouds, creating a glare off their goggles. Without the shrieking wind, the desert felt unnaturally calm. Neena clutched her knife as she looked over at the giant, gaping holes, which slanted north. Despite the apparent clue, they had no idea where the creature headed now.
“Stay away from the holes,” Kai warned, making sure to keep a wide berth around the cave-sized openings.
“Is there anything else in them?” Neena asked.
“Besides sand?” Kai asked. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to.”
Neena nodded. She didn’t need him to tell her twice.
They fell into a rhythm next to each other, walking as if they were on a hunt, looking over their shoulders, or scanning the horizon, looking for evidence of the creature. Several times, Neena thought she heard noises, but each time, it proved to be a hungry bird squawking overhead, or an occasional, brave sand rat scuttling past. She felt a degree safer with the animals around, but not safe enough.
“Remember what I said,” Kai said quietly. “If we hear rumbles, don’t panic, like I did. Running is an easy way to death. It makes our vibrations more noticeable.”
Neena agreed, until a memory came back to her. “Yesterday, when you first met me, we ran. Was that because of the sandstorm?”
“Partially, yes. But there was another reason. With the creature so close and surfacing, it might’ve crushed us, like it did to some of my comrades. It was a last resort.” Kai said gravely. “Normally, if we hear the rumbles, we should stay still. Or if we are near a cave, we should get to it.”
Thinking of the creature’s enormous, scaled body, Neena realized most of its appearance had been a blur. She hadn’t seen much more than its girth, its grinding teeth, and its gaping maw. “Does the Abomination have eyes?” she asked, feeling a shudder of fear as she spoke of it by name.
“I don’t think so,” Kai said. “I think it is blind, like the earthworms in the soil. But it senses light and dark, somehow, because it stays underground. It hunts us by vibrations. Then it surfaces and eats.”
Neena nodded. “So, the only way to avoid it is to look for caves?”
“It’s what I’ve been doing.” Kai fell silent as he thought about something. “Although I can’t guarantee that it will work forever.” He chewed his lip. “The Abomination is a force of nature. It eats, and it kills. It feeds its stomach. We might as well be sand rats to it. I think it will do what it needs for a meal.”
A shimmer of fear went through Neena’s body. Thinking of those strange, jagged spears she’d glimpsed on its body, she asked, “What were those things on its sides?”
“Quills?”
“Is that what you call them?”
“Some say those spear-like things help it tunnel through the ground,” Kai explained. “Others say they are for protection, when larger creatures are around. Of course, no one has seen anything close to its size. I think the Abomination is the last of its kind. Our people haven’t been able to pierce its hide with spears or arrows. We’ve tried many things over the years, but none of them worked.”
Neena envisioned the beast’s monstrous body and its jagged, bloodstained teeth. Of course, it was much too large for any weapons she knew.
“Thankfully, it seems to prefer the desert, or at least, that is where we most often run into it.” Kai thought on that. “But a few times recently, it has gotten bolder, and attacked our colony.”
“Is your colony on the sand?”
“Our homes are built of firmer soil, but it can get through the ground without a problem. Our people have discussed moving, but that would be a massive undertaking.”
“How many people are in your colony?” Neena asked, still processing the existence of another people.
“Three thousand,” Kai said. “Our colony is located in an oasis, with plenty of water. We have lived there for as long as I can remember. A few times, some of our leaders have tried leading the creature away, but it always seems to come back. Most of our plans don’t work, and people die.” Kai shook his head gravely. “If we moved, who is to say it wouldn’t find us somewhere else?”
Neena sighed. “Or it might kill you along the way.”
Kai nodded. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “In any case, I’m glad you knew of that cave.”
Neena followed his gaze, watching the rock formation fade into the haze of dust. The sight of it brought back some buried nostalgia. “I found it with my father, many years ago.”
“Is he waiting for you in Red Rock?”
Neena hesitated. “He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Kai said.
If the loss had been fresh, it might’ve brought tears. Instead, it brought a memory. “I found the cave when I was thirteen years old. We were hunting together,” Neena said, her thoughts drifting back to that time. “I was walking by the outside, admiring the smooth rock walls, when I found the opening. I remember my father scolding me as I went through the entrance, saying it wasn’t safe. Eventually, he followed me in. When he saw that there was enough room to move around in the cave, he was too impressed to be angry. In all his years, he had never known about it.”
“Sometimes it takes new eyes to see new things,” Kai said reflectively, looking up at the sky.
“Is that something your people say?”
“My mother did, when I was younger,” Kai said, smiling. “She used to enjoy watching me react to things for the first time. My wonder made her smile, or so she said.”
“She sounds like a kind person,” Neena said. “Is your father around, too?”
“He is, but we don’t get along.” Kai shrugged. “But that happens sometimes with parents. They are both at my colony.”
“I understand,” Neena said. “My dad taught me everything he knew about hunting, before he died. I think he did it so that I could take care of my brothers. Sometimes, I feel as if he knew he wouldn’t be around for long, though I don’t know how that could be true. My mother died giving birth to my youngest brother. After Dad died, we were alone.”
Gently, making it clear that he wouldn’t push, Kai asked, “What happened to him?”
“A few years ago, he came down with a sickness that took the weight from his bones,” Neena explained. “He grew so tired that normal tasks were a struggle. When he could no longer hunt, he left for the desert in the night, so that my brothers and I would not have to feed him. He left his spear behind for me.”
“He left you?” Kai asked, surprised.
Neena nodded. “As most of our people do, when they are gravely ill. It is the honorable thing to do.”
Kai seemed confused.
“It sounds as if your people do not have the same tradition.”
Kai shook his head, but he didn’t judge her. “That is not the way of our colony, but I am sure we have many differences.” Moving on from a sad subject, he asked, “You have two brothers?”
“Yes. They are named Raj and Samel. I have to get back to them. I am supposed to bring back food. I am all they have.”
“Do you have a husband in Red Rock? Children?”
Neena shook her head. “Just them.”
Kai nodded. “It sounds as if you are a good sister.”
“I do what I need,” Neena said simply.
They fell silent for a while as they kept walking. Neena listened for rumbles, or the screech of fleeing animals—anything that would signify a tunneling creature. She heard or saw nothing as the sun rose higher into the sky, cutting through the dust left over from the storm.
**
Over the course of the morning, the haze lifted from the landscape, revealing a plethora of flattened dunes. A light breeze scattered some of the sand around their bases. More than once, Neena looked up at the sky, confirming their direction of travel.
The planet she’d known all her life seemed foreign, strange, as if the storm had lifted her up and displaced her. She couldn’t be certain she wasn’t living some waking dream. Kai’s presence added to the journey’s abnormality. Still, it felt good to have someone around who knew something about the monster, even though she wasn’t ready to give him her complete trust.
They traveled for half a day under the hot rays of the sun, skirting around endless mounds of leveled sand, until a building hunger in Neena’s stomach became too difficult to ignore.
“Are you hungry?” she asked quietly, removing her pack.
Kai nodded, wiping away some sweat from his brow.
Neena dug in her bag, pulling out the last of her dried sand rat. “Here,” she said, splitting it.
Kai received the food gratefully, lowering his shawl to eat. Neena chewed mindlessly.
“I think this is the best sand rat I’ve tasted in years,” Kai said with a grave smile. “In any case, it is much better than scraproot. How much food do you have left?”
“That was the last of it,” Neena said.
Guilt crossed Kai’s face. “I did not mean to take the last of your rations.”
“If we survive, you can pay me back,” she said, smiling grimly. “Or maybe we can find a safe place to trap some more.”
Finishing the last of his food, Kai said, “It sounds as if your colony is as starved as mine.”
Neena nodded as she thought about that. “I can’t remember a time when food was plentiful. Lots of the creatures we used to hunt seemed to have disappeared. We are lucky to find many Rydeer anymore.”
“Even the sand rats seem savvier than they used to be,” Kai agreed with a sigh.
“Our ancestors had more creatures from which to choose, but I fear we have eaten too many,” Neena said, repeating a theory of which she had heard the old people whisper. Everyone knew about the skulls of the dead animals in the Comm Building. A few had even glimpsed them. As gruesome and frightening as those creatures seemed to have been, it would’ve been nice to have more sources of food, other than Rydeer, dust beetles, plants, and the elusive wolves that were too dangerous to catch.
With her mind on Red Rock, her thoughts wandered to Raj and Samel. She’d thought of them often, especially during the night, when she thought she might die and never see them again. Having them out of her sight always caused her worry.
Had the sandstorm reached as far as Red Rock?
She wished she knew.
She looked over her shoulder, a habit that became as instinctual as treading lightly. Seeing nothing, Neena allowed a small hope to build: in the time they’d traveled, she hadn’t seen any indication of the creature. No fearful rodents. No massive, gaping holes. Maybe they would find the luck that had evaded Kai.
They had just passed a dune when she spotted a tall, thin rock formation in the distance. Neena’s hope grew.
“That’s the formation of which I spoke,” she said, pointing with her knife.
Kai shielded his goggles from the sun’s glare as he appraised the tall, auburn spire. The large, craggy formation was about the width of a dozen people lying sideways, rising about a hundred feet in the air. In several places, ledges jutted out from the sides. In others, gaps recessed into the rock, where smaller pieces had broken away and fallen over time. Chunks of rock surrounded its base, leaning up against it, or spaced at various angles and distances. Neena didn’t see any animals hiding among them, but she did see a few circling birds.
“Look up there,” she said, pointing them out.
“It is good to see them,” Kai said with relief.
“The stream is on the western side,” she told him, veering in that direction. “It is small and partially hidden by the rocks. I’ve stayed behind them, during a few, lesser storms.”
“Are there any caves here?”
“Unfortunately not,” Neena said. “But we can fill our flasks, at least.”
That statement put some energy into Kai’s steps, propelling him onward. Even the tug of the sand on Neena’s boots seemed less arduous. They moved quietly, but quickly, until they got within fifteen feet of the structure.
Neena clutched her knife as they rounded the side of the formation. A jutting overhang protruded at eye level. Several craggy rocks provided shade from the sun. They followed the overhang to the formation’s south side, until they glimpsed the small stream, wending out from some lower rocks and curving underneath the structure fifteen feet away.
A few birds alighted from something in the desert.
Neena froze.
Farther out in the desert, a furry mound of flesh baked in the desert heat. Its intestines were chewed and unraveled. Neena covered her mouth as she discerned what the object had been.
The remains of a fawn.
On either side of the fawn’s carcass were two enormous, gaping holes.
Chapter 18: Darius
Darius wandered through the beaten Red Rock alleys. Most of the pathways were covered in a fresh layer of sand, erasing the tread of the colonists’ boots. Those paths, he knew, would soon be beaten down, as more and more people returned to their normal duties and carried out repairs. Earlier, he heard the distant cries of mourning women, but those cries had long since ceased. He prayed that the casualties were few.
Slowly, the fear in the colonists’ eyes turned to a bustling determination, as more and more of them flowed past him and to the river, filling up buckets of water and mud to make their patches, or waiting in line for their disbursement of straw. Their children helped, all wrapped in the same shawls and goggles they would wear for most of the day, until the last of the dust had cleared and they could breathe without worry.
Darius pulled his shawl tight against his face. Too much walking and grasping his cane made his fingers ache. Normally, Darius knew his limitations, but sometimes, like today, he had a reason to break them.
He had someone on whom to check.
Adjusting his goggles, he headed east, in the direction of the red rock formations that towered high above the colony, passing a few streams of people. A few nodded curtly.
Eventually, Darius reached a home built a little distance away from the others, on the end of a row. He was relieved to find it intact. The faded, round house had stood since long before Darius was born, and he expected it would survive much longer.
“Elmer?” he called.
Darius blinked, as if that might allow him to see through the remaining haze of sand that encircled the house. He wiped his goggles.
“Elmer?” he called again.
The door stood ajar, but he didn’t see movement. A shuffling noise drew his attention to the rear of the house, where a man even older than Darius ambled around a corner, clutching a rusted shovel. Patchy white hair stuck up around the man’s weathered face. His face lit up when he saw who visited.
“Is that you?” the older man asked, blinking one blue, cataract-covered eye, struggling to see through the other. A half-smile tugged at Elmer’s wrinkles as he confirmed that it was his friend. “Darius! You made it.”
“We both did,” Darius said with a smile of relief.
Elmer placed an appreciative hand on Darius’s shoulder. “It is good to see yo
u, my friend.”
“Another day alive is a blessing,” Darius said.
Elmer took his hand away, scratching his bristly chin. “How did your house fare?”
“A few cracked bricks,” Darius answered. “Nothing I can’t manage.”
“I keep waiting for the day this old shack goes over,” Elmer said, lifting his shovel and pointing at his house. “Maybe by the time it does, I’ll be too blind to notice.”
Darius smiled. Even on a dreary day, Elmer kept his humor.
“Do you need help clearing the sand?”
“I’ll be fine.” Elmer waved a hand. “As long as I have sight in one good eye, and the strength to shovel, I’ll keep digging.”
Darius nodded. He had expected that answer. Elmer was determined, as he was.
“I haven’t seen you in a few days,” Elmer noticed.
“I’ve been…busy,” Darius said.
“Too many spears to fix?” Elmer asked, making it clear that he wouldn’t push for an answer.
For the past few days, Darius’s leg had been bothering him. Or maybe it was the memories of Akron, which never seemed far from his thoughts. The sudden sandstorm made those memories even worse. Akron had disappeared in the midst of a similar storm, several years ago.
Elmer smiled sympathetically, probably picking up on Darius’s resurfaced pain.
Elmer knew the grief that could sap a man’s will, making it hard to step outside of his home. He knew about the despair that lived within a suffering man’s heart, making his grief deeper when he saw the honest smiles around him. Years earlier, Elmer had lost his wife to sickness. Ever since, his bond with Darius had strengthened. That wasn’t their only commonality. Elmer knew secrets about Darius that a less trustworthy man might use against him.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Elmer said, relief evident in his voice.
Darius looked around at the people cleaning their homes. “Have you seen The Heads of Colony?”
“They already came past, assessing the damage,” Elmer said. “I overheard them talking. Three people died during the night.”
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